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Quick Rustic Ciabatta Pizza - Recipe, Full Howto with Pics

Quick Rustic Ciabatta Pizza - Recipe, Full Howto with Pics

I started making this pizza after I had left over dough from my quick ciabatta recipe, (which you can make by following the same instructions but doubling the ingredients). Anyway, I like this better than the traditional olive oil enriched overnight proofed pizza doughs. It takes only about 2 hours start to finish to make, so you can make it after work.

A kitchen aid style stand mixer is required, unless you're comfortable working with high hydration doughs and hand mixing. People have assured me it's possible, but it's much easier with a mixer. You could also use a food processor to mix the dough, but the time will be much shorter. Probably less than a minute.

The resulting pizza is light, delicious, and full of huge holes in the crust. If you grow tomatoes and basil in your garden, this pizza is just the ticket.

Ingredients

Crust

250 g Bread Flour (All Purpose will also work in a pinch)

1 cup water

1 tsp yeast

7 g salt

Toppings

2 Tomatoes

Handful of fresh basil

Olive Oil

Mozzarella Cheese

Step 1, make the dough

Mix the flour,yeast,salt & water in your stand mixer with the paddle on high speed, it won't look like it is doing anything for a while. Then after about 10 minutes or so it will start to come together

Initial Ingredients

Initial mixing, notice the dough is sticking to the sides

Dough is done as soon as it stop sticking to the sides and is just coming off the bottom. It has the consistency of rubber but is very sticky.

Step 2, proof until triples.

I like to proof this dough in a narrow plastic container that has markings on it, it's important that the dough triples so it's easier to observe that then just throwing it in a bowl. Spray the container you use with spray oil, you'll thank me later.

Be quick moving the dough from the mixer to the proofing container. You'll probobly still end up with a little dough stuck to your hands, because it's very wet.

Here's my dough, now it will be very easy to see when it triples.

Step 3, heat oven and shape pizza.

Place your pizza stone into the oven and preheat to 500 degrees.

Now on a heavily floured counter, pour out your dough into a nice blob.

Now turn a baking sheet upside down and cover it with parchment paper. Not wax paper! Parchment paper is silicone treated and won't melt or light on fire in your hot oven. It will make getting this thing in the oven much easier.

I like to get the dough into a rough pizza shape while on the counter by grabbing it from underneath and stretching. Since the dough is floured on the bottom, you won't stick too much. You don't want it paper thin, but fairly thin in the center

The next step is tricky, we need to get our pizza to the parchment paper on the baking sheet. If you have corn meal handy, you might dust the parchment with that for re-shaping once we get the unruly dough on.

So pick up this thing and quickly move it to the parchment, if you need to do some reshaping once it's on the parchment move fast. It will eventually stick to the parchment. Then your only choice is to dump it out and try again with fresh parchment.

Phew! That was a close one, but I got in on the parchment. And it resembles a pizza dough!

Now it's time to top the pizza, I really just want some light olive oil, garlic powder, fresh tomatoes, basil and cheese. If you want sauce, you're on your own. You can really do whatever you want from this point.

One thing I've noticed with my oven though is that if I put the cheese on from the start, it'll burn and I'll have a raw pizza with burnt cheese. So I usually add cheese 2/3 of the way through baking.

Step 4, Baking

Time to bake! I always trim the parchment so it fits the pizza since loose parchment will brown a bit and might even catch on fire in the oven. So you can see in the photo above I've trimmed it up.

Once your oven has hit 500 degrees, slide your cheese-less pizza on to the pizza stone using the baking sheet. If you don't have a stone, just leave it on the sheet.

After 5 minutes my pizza looked like this, nice oven spring!

Once the crust has just started to brown (after about 8 minutes for me). I add the cheese.

Now I just let the cheese get to the point that I like and the crust to be nice and brown and I'm done. The all together baking time for this pie was 14 minutes.

Finished!

Looks good to me, though maybe i put on too much olive oil since it kind of pooled in the center. Also I probably could have put the cheese on a minute or two earlier since it's not brown all over.

Yum, yum yum.

Crust is looking perfectly golden.

Once again, nice airy crust, not dense and sticky, but light and delightful. That's the pay off from our 100% hydration ultra lean sticky dough.

I made a pretty incredible ultra thin crust dough that was adapted from the Cook's Illustrated Pizza Dough for Grilling recipe last night. It was absolutely the best for a "cracker type" thin crust. So I think I can safely rest with that dough and move forward to getting the other perfect crusts in order.

I'm still searching for the pinnacle of doughs for both the Neopolitan style and also the pan style pizza. Hopefully your amazing looking pizza will be able to fill the bill on at least the one of the two! :D

Part of the fam is a cracker thin crust eater. I love Neopolitan and DH loves pan pizza. So I'm at the point of making 3 different doughs and keeping them in the freezer to use as needed since my try at using one dough to make 3 different styles of crust have fallen flat on their faces. (6 months of testing later!) Yeah life is tough, haha! ;)

1. FOR THE CRUST: Combine oil and water in liquid measuring cup. In food processor fitted with plastic dough blade or metal blade, process bread flour, whole wheat flour, sugar, salt, and yeast until combined, about 5 seconds. With machine running, slowly add liquid through feed tube; continue to process until dough forms tacky, elastic ball that clears sides of workbowl, about 1 1/2 minutes. If dough ball does not form, add more flour 1 tablespoon at a time and process until dough ball forms. Spray medium bowl lightly with nonstick cooking spray or rub lightly with oil. Transfer dough to bowl and press down to flatten surface; cover tightly with plastic wrap and set in draft-free spot until doubled in volume, 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

2. When dough has doubled, press down gently to deflate; turn dough out onto work surface and divide into 4 equal-sized pieces. With cupped palm, form each piece into smooth, tight ball. Set dough balls on well-floured work surface. Press dough rounds with hand to flatten; cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

Bluezebra's Modification: I wanted to see if I could modify this for a sourdough version...so here is what I changed.

.5 FOR THE PREFERMENT: I used 4oz of the water and 4oz of the flour from the recipe in making the preferment. I added the 1 oz of starter and let it sit until it had doubled in volume and was just peaking in heighth. Then mixed it in the food processor as directed below. Please note that I have already made the subtractions to the quantities in my recipe immediately above this note.

1. FOR THE CRUST: Combine oil and water in liquid measuring cup. In food processor fitted with plastic dough blade or metal blade, process bread flour, whole wheat flour, sugar, salt, and yeast until combined, about 5 seconds. With machine running, slowly add liquid through feed tube; continue to process until dough forms tacky, elastic ball that clears sides of workbowl, about 1 1/2 minutes. If dough ball does not form, add more flour 1 tablespoon at a time and process until dough ball forms. Spray medium bowl lightly with nonstick cooking spray or rub lightly with oil. Transfer dough to bowl and press down to flatten surface; cover tightly with plastic wrap and set in draft-free spot until doubled in volume, 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

2. COLD RISING: The dough was almost overworked - I think because of the effect of the sourdough starter and the use of diastatic malt powder. It was almost cobwebby in texture and super tight and unworkable. So I put it in a lightly oiled large baggie and threw it in the fridge and forgot about it for a couple of days. I removed it from the fridge and allowed it to sit out in the baggie for about 2 hours to bring it closer to room temp. The texture was more extensible but you could tell the dough wasn't quite as tender as other doughs I've done.

3. SHAPING: Divide the dough into 4 balls and roll on the counter (sprayed with water so that dough does not stick) to form a tight ball. Set each ball on a portion of counter that is lightly floured. Cover with flour impregnated tea towel and let it rest for 30 minutes. Uncover one ball and place where you have room to roll it out using a rolling pin. I placed a piece of parchment paper down on the counter and dusted it with flour. I rolled the pizza dough as thin as I could (slightly less than 1/8").

4. COOKING DOUGH: I placed the dough directly onto the pizza stone, while still on the parchment. Cooked it in a preheated 450 degree oven for 5 minutes. The bottom side was browned and some of the brown was showing through on the top of the crust. I removed it and the parchment and flipped it upside down. Topped the pizza with garlic infused olive oil, mozzarella chunks, canned tomato chunks (drained and salted and allow to drain some more in a collander), fresh grated parmegiano, dried basil, dried oregano, a sprinkle of red bell pepper, a sprinkle of slivered purple onion, a few sparse sauted mushrooms and a few sliced green olives. (Sounds like alot of toppings but the toppings including the tomatoes were very sparce on it and you could see alot of crust around it). Return it to the pizza stone and allow it to finish baking to melt all the toppings.

The result was a crisp, tender crust with a great snap to it. Very thin dough. Very cracker like. Nice taste. Excellent for a cracker thin crust. Held it's crispness for 2 hours at room temp. Was still moderately crisp on outter 1/3 after overnight refrigeration.

When making again, I would:

1. Not work the dough as much in the processor. (The end temp was 85 degrees and I think that was way too much).

2. Maybe reduce the amount of sourdough starter from 1oz to 1/2 oz and 2 oz of flour and 2 oz of water to see if that improves the dough texture.

Hope this helps! I'm by no means an expert on anything having to do with baking! And have only made this recipe one time so don't know if my variation is repeatable.

For those who only half read the directions, take note of the mixer directions.

The instructions say mix on HI SPEED. I used level 2 on my KA as it's the highest speed I have ever used for dough. After 15 minutes nothing had happened that looked like gluten forming and the dough was still pancake batter in the bottom of the bowl. SOOO I went back and looked again and noticed HI SPEED and started again. Within a few minutes the rubbery dough I was looking for developed right in front of my eyes. Imagine that!:>) Just thought I would mention this for other men who don't RTFI.

Eric, you probably never went higher than level 2 for dough because that's what the directions say. Above level 2 could burn the motor out. Unless you have one of the professional models - I'm not familiar with those directions, although I see a lot of recipes that tell you to knead with your KitchenAid at level 4.

I am also guilty of not reading more carfully. I had the paddle in my KA running at 2. After 10 mins. I went back to read and seen the High Speed comment. I cranked it up just for 2 more mins, and should of let it go longer. It was a bear pouring the batter out LOL. Mine turned out not bad but was still a bit on the tough side. I will keep trying this recipe. Thanks.

I'll have to try this again when I'm paying attention and don't beat the living daylight out of the dough. I had an awful time moving the dough onto the parchment. It wasn't pretty after I tried to pick it up. I did manage to spread it out and top it nicely and get it baked. The home made effect over powered the clumsiness aspect and everyone was happy!

Glad you liked it , and you're right. Shaping it is the toughest part, if anyone has any ideas for shaping it I'm all ears. I think it would probably be easier to just heavily semolina/corn meal the peal and shape the whole thing on there.

I don't know about shaping on the parchment, it tends to stick to the parchment. I think the best bet would be to partially shape it on the counter into a very rough disc, then shape it in your hands and quickly readjust on parchment before it sticks.

It's tricky for sure, the one wrinkle in this otherwise very easy recipe.

Reinhart says in the BBA that if you think you'll have to reposition dough while it's on the parchment, spray the parchment with oil first. The nonstick property of the parchment doesn't kick in till a certain heat level is attained in the oven. Worth a try.

Also, about how long does it take your dough to triple? Is it at room temperature?

I use one of those Wilton roll and cut mats for dough that is fragile like this. Its basically just a 20" x 20" smooth plastic mat.

Flour it like you would the counter, dump out dough as described above and get it the way you want it. Cover the dough with the parchment paper and then a cookie sheet. Now you can just flip everything (mat, dough, paper, and sheet) together. The mat will peel off easily, and you can now slide dough, paper, and sheet into your oven.

Your pizza looks fabulous! I am gonna try it. I've finally taken the plunge a couple times to make my own pizza and I even impressed myself. (heehee) But, seriously, it was soooooo much fun and the results were to die for. My husband was just excited as heck and so proud of my efforts. Actually, he helped with the toppings and we had a blast. I'd love to try it again using your crust recipe just for something different. Thanks.

Wow, this worked out better than I thought. I was expecting the glutenous mess that you get from the no knead bread (so sue me, I don't like that bread) but this turned out real good. The pizza was tastey, and now I'm going to try the ciabatta dough when I've eaten all that other bread I've made recently. (It's a self imposed rule, I have to eat or find a home for the current bread before making any more.)

I don't know what my major malfunction is...maybe it's lack of equipment but it could be an equal amount of inexperience!

I made the dough for this last night. I used your ciabatta bread recipe so that I could make 3 crusts with it. My major problem was that I don't have a stand mixer and didn't have time yesterday to develop this dough by hand. So I decided to test out the food processor.

Miserable failure...have you ever tried to make it in a food processor and if so, how did you do it? I ended up having to add 3/4c of extra flour to it and it still didn't pull away from the sides although after about 15 minutes in the processor it did develop gluten strings.

However, I defied all laws of yeast and dough by doing that cuz even though I used a plastic blade by the time I took it out of the processor bowl, the dough was 111 degrees! :eek!!!! So I quickly used a spatula and stretched it to mix in some cooling air and worked with it to reduce the heat. The surface was already looking rather "ill" until I got the temp reduced.

It did go ahead and rise 3x (big surprise there). Cuz I figured I had killed all the yeasty beasties. Then I cut into 3 portions and shaped. I was careful when pulling into a pizza crust shape, not to deflate the dough but it wasn't very puffy when I was done. Then I let each one rise 45 minutes but it had not really risen any by then.

It puffed a little bit in the oven but not anything like your beautiful pictures...what did I do wrong here? Please count the ways! I am jonesin' for pizza that looks like yours Lil Dice and as God and (Scarlett) are my witnesses, I shall not rest nor save the crops till I succeed! :D

I've never tried this wet of a dough in a food processor before and don't have much experience with it. You CAN develop it by hand in a bowl though, check out the Jason's Quick Ciabata in the regular Artisans baking forum for some people talking about doing this dough by hand.

For what it's worth, when I make ciabatta from a recipe very similar to this one, I use a stand mixer and depending on the weather and the flour, may have to mix it as long as thirty minutes. You may not be letting it run long enough, but depending on your processor, you may not want it to run that long. Be careful. Unless it's a Robot Coupe. I'd recommend borrowing a stand mixer otherwise... you'll die of old age and exhaustion doing this by hand, if you don't shoot yourself because of the mess.

tried it by hand and it worked (on the other thread). It really wasn't too difficult or anything, I was just pressed for time that day when I tried it with the processor.

My final analysis of it, lol, is that it doesn't work too well cuz it's too liquid. Oh, you can get the gluten started without damaging the dough too much with the heat, but you should probably stop after about 2 minutes or so...instead of more like 15 minutes *blush* maybe longer, I lost my mind and all track of time for a bit. I almost felt I was in the Bermuda Triangle!!! :D ;)

I will try it again by hand but I still don't know if it will get that spectacular edge you're showing on yours and that I covet (sp?) so much! :D

Wow. I made this recipe, but just baked it as a small ciabatta. I oiled my hands and dimpled the surface with fresh chopped rosemary, gave it a sprinkle of celtic sea salt and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. 14 minute bake and ... heaven.My husband and I devoured it with a dish of olive oil, black pepper, crushed red pepper and a little parmigiano.Talk about (almost) instant gratification! Thanks!

On my scale I just got 6 grams for a teaspoon of morton's kosher using scoop-and-sweep method. It flickered from 6 to 5 grams once so that means it is probably just under 6. A slighly heaped teaspoon (just scoop and shake it a bit to take off some of the excess) was 7 grams.

On another note.. measuring cups vary between brands, so I would suggest using 8oz by weight of water (226 grams). So really this is 90% hydration, not 100%.

I knew measuring spoons could vary a lot, but never thought about the cups. I'll take a minute to weigh the water from my measuring cups to verify their accuracy. I'm in the habit of weighing flour and measuring everything else. But it's probably easier to add water by weight than it is to be sure it's exactly on the appropriate line of a measuring cup or beaker.

I made this dough yesterday and since I (sadly) don't have a stand mixer, I used a hand mixer/beater thingie- it turned out lovely! It took much longer than 10 minutes to develop the dough properly (maybe closer to 20?) but it rose really well and baked really nicely. My bf and I ate the entire loaf in about 15 minutes! I shaped my dough on the counter in a big load of flour, so it was really sticky but it baked with that really pretty flourey, golden brown texture with lots of holes. It was super duper- I'm making it again today (sans kitchenaid!!)

I am so thankful for this recipe!! I have never even seen ciabatta in person (seriously!) and never tasted it. I read this thread yesterday and, being a bit of a blythe optimist, I decided that I would make this for a meeting I had last night.

I could not find hte original thread for the ciabatta, so I just used this crust recipe, running from kitchen to computer while making it!

Thanks to the Lord and this recipe, it turned out PHENOMENALLY! Seriously, this is now my favorite thing to bake. The dough felt HEAVENLY in my hands while shaping--I kept wanting to play with it lolol. It baked well, was easygoing, though I do not have a scale, etc. I admit that I did use extra yeast, just a little bit.

This is one of my favorites and I want to try it for pizza next.

A question--would this work well as a loaf bread at all? Is there a way to get this wonderful crumb in a loaf bread?

Glad you liked it Atropine, not sure what you mean about as a loaf bread - if you mean putting in a loaf plan, I honestly have no idea how it would work. It's called Ciabatta because it's supposed to be shapedlike a slipper.

There's really no need for extra yeast, have a little faith :)

Did you double this recipe when making just for bread? If I do that I can get 2 Ciabatta's and a pizza, it works perfectly.

Check the side of the bag of a 5 pound bag of wheat flour. Most companies use 75 or 76 quarter cups per 5 pound bag as an appoximation. Do the math and and 4.21 or 4.27 per flour cup is the respective approximation. 4.25 oz per wheat flour cup is probably a good approximation. For each company the approximation is same for all wheat flour types, ie, whole wheat, unbleached,etc.

Panini are popular in my area at the moment, I have been searching for a perfect bread to make my Panini sandwiches and today I found it with this recipe. All I have added is 2 tablespoons of oil to this basic recipe at mixing time. I mix and allow to proof, as described in the original recipe. I then very gently pour the dough onto a heavily, semolina dusted bench, cut the dough and very gently shaped into 5 or 6 oval pieces. I also sprinkled the tops with the semolina. I preheated the pizza stone to 250c, I allowed the dough to recover for about 15 minutes and lifted the buns onto the stone with an egg lifter. My oven is a bit 'quick' so I decrease the heat to 200c as I put the buns into the oven, turn the pizza stone once during cooking, 15 munites later perfect bread for my Panini. A crusty roll with a very soft texture and lots of holes to capture the topping, rather like a Pride.

I tripled the recipe to make 3 large pizzas, never seen our 6qt filled with bubbles like that! It was easy to make in the KA, I admit adding 1/4C more of flour due to it's moisture =-( No harm done =-) I only have 1 baking stone and two ovens. I ended up lining large pizza pans with parchment then sprayed them with PAM, spooned dough into them and with a floured hand distributed dough to the edges to flatten evenly. I had to bake them in their pizza pans for the initial 8 minutes since I worried about tearing the parchment paper with my peel. After adding the cheese they went onto the baking stone on their parchment. Very good results, thanks for posting souch a wonderful recipe, very much enjoyed!

I've been carrying my printed copy of this around and finally had the guts to try it last night. Wow. I should have done so sooner. Thanks for posting this recipe!! It will forevermore be my home made pizza night recipe!!

I've been using 237g of water with the 250g flour from the standard recipe, however I've been having great luck using 75g of whole wheat in place of some of the bread flour without making the crust too dense.

I bake on a pizza stone at 500f but I dress the whole pizza before it goes into the oven, though I like your idea of baking the crust first (lets the whole thing rise instead of getting less rise in the center where its topped) and may try that sometime to hopefully get a crispier bottom, but the air bubbles (my favorite part of a pizza) using this dough can't be beat!

Hey I love making pizza dough, learned how after I failed at my first couple attempts at making bread, so I redeemed myself through making homemade pizza dough and now insist on homemade pizza's only at my house.

I now make sourdough pizza and it is great, got the recipe somewhere off these boards when I first joined TFL; I just use my starter straight out of the fridge to make my dough, no feedings required, I just use the weekly feeding pour off's from the mother (instead of throwing it away) and when I get enuff I prepare the dough and freeze some dough...it is great!

I will try this recipe as I am own my way to learning about whole wheat pizza doughs and going to try using a WW sourdough starter as soon as I learn how to make one and then off to the oven I go for some more good eats!

I have been making homemade pizza for years (thanks to my mom that started me on it). A few years back I got an amazing pizza cookbook titled Pizza by Morgan and Gemignani. I think anyone that wants to make pizza should get this book. Anyway, in my pizza making I found the absolute best toppings ever and thought I would share...

saute some sliced shallots and mushrooms in butter..mmmm

cooked chicken strips, fairly thin

jarred alfredo sauce for the sauce...mmmm (again)

then for cheese on top I used mozarrela, real parmesan and fontina, sometimes romano...mmmm

As I said, I love Pizza the cookbook, but I am excited to try this recipe since I don't have to overnight the dough in the fridge.

Thanks you sooooooooo much for posting this recipe. I've tried a few recipes but haven't found the one. Yours is the closest I've come to what I consider perfection.

I have 2 questions for you. Please understand I 've only been baking a year & don't know very much about sourdough or pizza . Hopefully my questions aren't stupid ones...Can I put a bit of my starter in this recipe to ad flavor & not sacrifice bubbly texture? I've made some sourdough recipes that are thicker but don't get as bubbly...How would I adjust the recipe? What about adding honey or sugar to mix? Thanks so much!

i bake alot of french bread but never come to thought of a ciabatta pizza base. YOU ARE A BLESSING for GODS glory.

thank you, for your recipe works accurately in warm weather malaysia really fast and effective, it took lest than two hours to rise rapidly and came out TOP SECRET SUPERB against pizza outlets in malaysia.

i mean really the best texture of all kinds wether it is thin crust of doughy , yours is both the best of its kind. I will treasure it now.

I'm wondering if anyone had any ideas how I might adapt this recipe to make it completely with whole grains. Would it help to hydrate the flour for some time before fermenting and mixing? Should grains other than whole wheat be added to balance the flavor/texture? Or am I on a fool's errand in my attempt to eat delicious baked goods while keeping my carbs as complex as possible?

I made this pizza last night using white whole wheat flour (from Trader Joe's) to substitute for the white flour called for in the recipe.

I had thought I would need to add a little more water to allow for better hydration of the whole wheat flour, but the dough wasn't coming together after 10 minutes in my mixer, so I began to sprinkle in pinches of additional flour. Pinches added up, but finally I got a dough that seemed to resemble the description.

After rising for a little over 2 hours, it was time to shape and bake. I put a piece of parchment paper directly on my pizza peel (much easier, I suppose, than using an inverted sheet pan!) and poured the dough on top. The dough was very sticky, of course, but I wasn't prepared for what happened next: I dusted the top of the dough so that I could better work it, and suddenly the dough was easily handled and had the most amazing, soft feel to it.

After stretching and topping the pizza, I dropped it onto my pizza stone. About 8 minutes later, I added the cheese (sliced fresh mozzarella). After about 12 minutes it was done.

While not perfect, I am very encouraged by this first attempt. For a completely whole wheat base, the crumb was relatively light and airy. I could see what I would do next time: par-bake the crust then top with tomato sauce or crushed tomatoes and cheese. For the crust, I would brush with garlic-infused olive oil; in fact, I'm tempted to make it just as a bread, and sprinkle as well with a little kosher salt.

Thank you so much for your post. I will try it today. It occurred to me that you could avoid the transfer problem by shaping directly onto parchment so long as you can secure the side of the paper so it doesn't move around while you are working. Then you would not have to lift and place on a parchment from your countertop.

I made this easy ciabatta pizza dough with a few changes. 180 grams all purpose flour, 30 grams durum wheat flour, 20 grams whole wheat flour. I added an extra 1/2 tsp yeast because I was in a hurry. This didn't seem to effect the overall taste of the dough because it was amazing! The best pizza I have made by far, even better than some of the pizzas that have been refrigerated for several days.

For toppings-brushed with olive oil and than-a sundried tomato spread (sold at Safeway). Fresh arugula pesto with pinenuts and parmesan. Mozarella. Pepperoni. The arugula pesto was a hit. My arugula is bolting so I made a giant batch of pesto. We will be eating it for awhile as I will freeze a bunch. Should keep us in pesto until the basil starts producing!

I finally was able to follow the "less is better rule" and didn't over top my pizza. It was crunchy in the middle with nice soft crust on the edges. Just the way I like it!

So, I doubled this recipe in order to make two pizzas and freezing one. I made the shell as the third image in step 3 shows and baked it at 500 degrees for 5 minutes. It is not done at this point but i removed it, let it cool, wrapped it and froze it for future use.

Now when I come home and want my type of pizza, I can just add toppings, put it in at 500 degrees for 5 minutes and I have saved a huge step.

The picture looks so good and the instructions so easy that I had to try this pizza. Did everything the recipe called for (used 237 g of water) and within 10 min, my dough formed a ball in my KA. I proofed the dough in a large 8 cups oiled container at a room temp of appx 74 F.

3 hrs later, my dough had only doubled (but my container is very wide and not high like the one on the picture). Getting tired of waiting for the dough to tripe so I will go shape it after this posting. I will then cover it again. Will crank my oven to 500 F after dough is shaped and covered so by the time the oven is hot, it will take another 45 min. Hopefully, this second rise will help a little....just gonna experiment.

Darn it...just don't understand why it didn't triple! Will report back on taste.

When the instruction is for the dough to double or triple , it means double or triple in volume. You've already kind of realised something along those lines by referring to the shape of your container.

It would help if your proofing container were see-through and you were able to mark it with a waterproof pen..... Many people here use bought for purpose proofing containers, but it is possible to improvise. Add cups of water to the container and mark the container on the outside at 1 cup intervals. As it happens I have an 8 cup capacity pyrex bowl that I have marked in 1 cup intervals. I use it when working with an unfamiliar dough. Mostly i can tell by feel but it helps to keep an eye on the development of volume too. With the markings I can tell at a glance what the volume increase has been.

I'm sure your pizza will be delicious, but try marking the container to make it easier to figure out next time. Also start feeling the dough, gently placing your hand on top, so that you learn to understand dough development by touch too.

Did you cover the container with your dough in it, to keep the moisture in? Perhaps that wide opening contributed to the apparent lack of volume. I use shower cap like covers sold here by Glad rather than throw away plastic wrap.

When the instruction is for the dough to double or triple, it means double or triple in volume. You've already kind of realised something along those lines by referring to the shape of your container.

Volume is Width*Depth*Height. With any straight-sided container, both Width and Depth stay the same everywhere while only Height changes, thus making it easy to judge volume. Two times the height is two times the volume, three times the height is three times the volume, and so forth, with any straight-sided container. So it's always easy and fairly accurate to judge volume (unless the container was so big around the mass of dough didn't initially touch the sides ...which I assume is what you were talking about).

Because of problems caused by unlevel tops or dough not touching the sides or the dough already being full of bubbles, I'm in the habit of when I first put the dough in, gently squishing it to a uniform level that completely fills the container. That seems to make marking and judging quite a bit easier.

Judging "double-volume" or "triple-volume" of a lump of dough in a bowl with a rounded shape is very difficult and hence usually quite inaccurate. Fortunately somebody figured out the solution was simply to use any straight-sided container.

(I have found though that if I use a bulk-rising container that's "way too small" for the dough, the weight of the dough above will make the rise less than it would have been otherwise.)

Quote:

It would help if your proofing container were see-through and you were able to mark it with a waterproof pen

I've found an alternate method that some may prefer. I keep a rubber band around the container. When I first put the dough in, I slide the rubber band up or down to where the top of the dough mass is. I find that works just as well as making a mark (and can even handle marking slightly "unlevel" doughs pretty well), and there's nothing to erase.

I did in fact use a see-through container; it also has its own marking that allows me to see the rise progression. But just to be on the safe side, I also used the elastic band trick (see.....I do read and learn ALOT on TFL). I covered the container with a shower cap. It was a rather large bowl. I know for sure that the dough did double in heigth, but bcuz the bowl was so wide, the dough must have also expanded in width ie sideways. Could this be the reason why the heigth did not triple? Difficult for me to say....In any event, I baked the pizza.

While I was shaping my dough, I suddenly realized that I was making the Jason's quick ciabatta bread. When I read the recipe and the instructions above, it sounded familiar but did not think that it was the actual Jason's ciabatta recipe. I later double checked Jason's recipe again and concluded that I was indeed making the exact bread I did two weeks ago. I thought it was odd that LilDice posting had us mix-knead the dough with the KA paddle the entire 10 min (and Jason's recipe had us change to the hook after a while). However, mixing-kneading the dough only with the paddle did not cause me any problem and after 10 min, my dough formed a ball and stopped sticking to the bowl. When I made the Jason's ciabatta using the hook, I barely got a ball that was no longer sticking to the bowl after 30 min. My first attempt at making the Jason's ciabatta recipe did not yield a super rise either after 2 to 2.5 hrs. Nevertheless, my dough eventually did triple after 3.5 hrs when I baked this recipe two weeks ago. Exact recipe, exact room temp, but different result...oh well, ce sont les mysteres de la vie.

As for taste, nahhhhh, same comment. Nothing bad, but nothing exciting either. My crust was GREAT; very airy with big holes. However, the center of the pizza rose quite a bit in the oven (not as much as the ciabatta bread of course) so I did not have a thin centre...just too much dough (not dense, just too much!). I will continue to look for another pizza dough. Thanks for putting this up; it was a great experience making homemade pizza for the first time.

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